Update problems again. Is this common?

Funny, this sounds quite familiar to me. Only it wasn't for Tapped Out but another EA game Plants vs. Zombies. I also could only update with cellular data, nothing in-game would work for me. My home internet was fine otherwise - no other game or application was affected. This went on for about a year and then with one of the updates it miraculously fixed itself.

I would suggest trying external wifi to see if you can pick up updates this way. With PvZ it seemed to be an internal problem... maybe router or firewall. But any external wifi would work fine. Maybe try a coffee shop or work wifi if you have it?

Sorry I don't have any real solutions for this, but you may be able to work around it with an external wifi until it works itself out.

I imagine you tried resetting your home Wi-Fi network? I know that needs to be done from time to time with devices connecting to it and leaving it, etc.

Do you typically load the game over cell, and exit out with the home button? Or are you force closing the app, then trying to open on Wi-Fi? I know sometimes when I switch between cell/Wi-Fi the game doesn't always load/save properly. Though I've never experienced missing items. I've always had it save when dealing with donuts/tasks. I usually force close to avoid any potential problems.

I ask, since my latest game Miitomo, doesn't seem to work over cell signal, but only works over Wi-Fi on my iPhone. Which is the exact opposite problem you have. I'm on IOS iPhone 5S.

The only thing I'm seen on IOS is that when I'm low on storage, all my TSTO data gets deleted so I need to download all 500 MB of data again. Not sure if that's tied to your issue or not.

It sounds like it's your WiFi connection. Maybe a faulty router that's interupting signal. If you lose connection while doing something, the game resets to an early version, usually not by much, but it goes back nonetheless.

If it's fine on your mobile signal, I can't imagine it's the game that's the problem.

So many possibilities for a cause...

Wifi routers have about a dozen channels. Some devices let you pick the channel, but most have a default. Sometimes you can be in an area with conflicting networks operating on the same channel. This can cause confusion for your mobile device, interrupting downloads and creating corrupt files. Those files won't be corrected until the next update unless you find a way to force correct. Like uninstalling and reinstalling.

That's just one possible conflict source.

Another is, the drivers for your specific device, for video, audio, etc are unique to that model. Every model had its own drivers. The game is supposed to be programmed to communicate with every set of drivers for every approved device.

Sometimes a device has its driver updated and the software for your game loses compatibility until it's updated. Sometimes they get a new driver but you're still working with the old one because your device wasn't included in the update. Sometimes when there's incompatibility, it rolls back to a previous version that worked. But that version could be obsolete and causes the conflict.

There's lots of little things that could be specific to you and your circumstances, either the device or the network you're on. These are difficult for the game provider to address, and it usually takes forever before you see results.

Good luck resolving your problems, i know they are frustrating.
But if you have an effective alternative, i recommend sticking with it.

Thanks for the replies. I have plenty of available memory on my phone, so I will try and see what I can do about my wifi. All other games update fine, though! At least I can turn off wifi and play, but every time I turn it back on, no Spring Cleaning event. Maybe I will try calling EA customer service again. I've found them to be helpful, eventually. Also, I will try the wifi somewhere else - that's a good suggestion and maybe it's what did the trick in the past.

Just in case it's helpful to anyone: I was able to fix things this time by uninstalling and reinstalling the game. I did turn my modem off and back on before i reinstalled, too. That got everything working fine over WiFi again. Woohoo!